Nov. 9, 2013

In-house counsel share thoughts on law firms' marketing efforts

Legal marketing specialists gathered at Hotel Nikko in San Francisco on Oct. 28 for the 2013 Legal Marketing Technology Conference. During one of the handful of panels presented throughout the day, in-house counsel spoke about what marketing attempts have and haven't worked in attracting their business. "I have actually disqualified a firm based on bios," D. Casey Flaherty, corporate counsel for Kia Motors Corp., said. "We were pitching a new area of work. We said, 'Who would be doing the work?' I went and looked at their bio and it wasn't something they focused on." Stephanie Corey, legal operations director for Flextronics International Ltd., said her company tries to focus on keeping a few trusted law firms for most matters. She said the company's two-year requests for proposal would soon come to an end and that she offered to keep her primary firms without issuing a new RFP as long as they agreed to keep their rates at the same level. "Not one firm said no. A couple of the firms negotiated a little bit," Corey said. MeMe Jacobs Rasmussen, chief privacy officer, vice president and associate general counsel of Adobe Systems Inc., said firms that offer her extra value get repaid in the long run. As an example, she cited a firm that did international privacy work for the company that offered to do some U.S. work as well for no additional charge, which netted that firm more work in the long run. "When I have a privacy issue that falls outside the retainer, who am I going to go to?" she said. — Joshua Sebold